[Fiware-coaches] fi-lab problematics

[thierry.nagellen at orange.com]

Hi Marco,

Some general answers that the other coaches could also complete:

1.     Yes the assumption to be FIWARE accelerator is to promote FIWARE technologies and to integrate them to do some new businesses;

2.     FIWARE team is in support of the SMEs and startups which have to use our technologies. If there are some bugs and we will not say the opposite, have they submitted a ticket so we could solve them? I'm really not sure of that and being in the hackaton in Rennes in the middle of November, I did not have the same feedback from SMEs and students so maybe we have also to split the problems between what is related to FIWARE Lab (accessibility concerns) and what is related to GEs. So again, before asking the list of the best GEs, could they provide the one which did not work, so we could check the tickets and their status.

3.     It is part of the 3rd phase to define where are the commercial platforms SMEs and startups will use if there are successful in their development. So CEED has to keep in mind that they are part of the programme now and have also to contribute to this part. They could also propose to have a commercial FIWARE node they want to instantiate to do their own business. There are not here just to distribute money to nice startups.

4.     Regarding the use of one or more GE, the use of 1 GE is acceptable if it is clearly explained from a technical point of view (how it fit in the architecture of the service) and from a business point of view (what is the added value). Typically Cosmos, the big data GE is one of them which could help startup to sue big data technologies easily and give them a kind of competitive advantage. But in addition some other Accelerators have also pushed Specific Enablers from FI-Star, FI-Content or FIT-Man and try to say if you are using these SE, you are on line with the programme. I have personally explained to European Piooners, but also FI-C3 that this is not the target and that the rules for the use of these Specific Enablers are totally unclear, sometimes documentation is not available, and that nobody is able to evaluate if they could really be used because these projects do not provide technical coaches to evaluate the proposals. I have mentioned this concern to EC (Peter Fatelnig) especially because of FI-Star which currently  would not provide access to the SE if you have not signed the Collaboration Agreement (and SMEs will never sign that) and second they proposed technical support only till the end of the project, so autumn 2015, in the middle of phase 3.

So in conclusion, yes we are not in a commercial status but they were aware of that while submitting their proposal and we have a common challenge to progress together to have a market adoption of the most relevant FIWARE technologies. Anyone who detects a business opportunity can launch its own business including FIWARE Accelerators and they will have the full support of FIWARE. And trying to be more professional, we have put in place some processus like for other communities or professional services and they can ask support, so they have to use these channels to improve what could be current weak points.

BR
Thierry

De : fiware-coaches-bounces at lists.fi-ware.org [mailto:fiware-coaches-bounces at lists.fi-ware.org] De la part de consoft-fiwarecoach at consoft.it
Envoyé : mercredi 10 décembre 2014 12:31
À : fiware-coaches at lists.fi-ware.org
Objet : [Fiware-coaches] fi-lab problematics

Dear all,

Good morning; I'm Marco Terrinoni, FIWARE Coach from Consoft, I'm following the accelerators from CEED Tech project.

First of all let me thank you for all the useful information regarding the proposed evaluations methods and the minutes from the previous calls.

I would like to expose a couple of problems I'm facing regarding the usage of FI-Lab and the various GEs on it, exposed by people from CEED Tech project.
The first is related to the "Terms and Conditions"  of FI-Lab: as we know, the platform can be used only for non-commercial purposes, which is a little bit controversial if we think about the nature of the Acceleration Programme.
The second is still related to  FI-Lab but more in terms of availability and usability of the platform: people from CEED Tech denounces a kind of "buggy" status of FI-Lab and GEs in the catalogue, and they say that they are skeptics in exposing such FIWARE technologies. Here's a section of the e-mail I just received this morning:

                "I completely understand that the use of these tools needs to be advertised (that is the whole point of this programme), but what is important to understand is that we are in the business of supporting young enterprises. Therefore we cannot suggest faulty technologies to them. They should be spending their time on developing their business [...] not developing FIWARE or trying to get it to work. FIWARE should be the tool that it is advertised to be [...] useful. If the GEs turn out to be ridden with bugs then this needs to be reported and fixed before they can be deployed within business situations."

In particular: after a FIWARE workshop occurred in Budapest a week ago, the general feedback they have is that "the whole platform is still very much under construction"; in addition they ask if is possible to have a list of GEs that is fully developed (better functionalities with less bugs).
Of course I'm trying to mitigate such situation but I would like to have some feedbacks from you.
What can we do, as coaches, in this kind of situation? Is there an "official suggestion" to give to accelerators in order to promote FIWARE Technologies (e.g., FI-Lab, GEs)?
Next week I will have a webinar about general aspects of FIWARE and related potentials, and I'm sure a lot of questions regarding those aspects will be asked.

Concluding, back to evaluation: from CEED Tech they told me that the evaluation proposals seems to be too much restrictive for their environment, suggesting to be more "flexible" (e.g., the limitation to one single GE is acceptable without any problem). Next Friday I will have a call with CEED Tech evaluators, in which evaluation methods will be discussed; except for the rule of FIWARE technology usage (enablers), do we have any other "unbreakable" constraint?

Thanks a lot for your attention.

Best regards,
Marco Terrinoni


Marco Terrinoni
Consoft Sistemi s.p.a.
BU Application
Via Pio VII 127 - 10127 - Torino
Tel (+39) 011 3161571
Fax (+39) 011 3161583



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